500 critically injured, killed each year in Turkey after diving headfirst into shallow waters

Some 500 people each year in Turkey break their necks, either dying of respiratory failure instantly or suffering spinal cord injury and mostly becoming wheelchair-bound as a result of diving headfirst into shallow waters, with the figures reaching thousands of people when added with world figures.

The Turkish Neurosurgical Society's head, Yusuf Şükrü Çağlar, warned swimmers not to dive headfirst if they are not sure of the depth of the water or in places with water depths less than two meters. 

"If the depth of the water cannot be seen, plunging headfirst should not be done. However well one jumps, a serious injury can be incurred," he said. 

"You may know how to swim, but the water can be deceptive. The water that seems deep to you, can in fact be shallow," Çağlar added. 

If the swimmer incurs a neck injury, their neural system controlling the movement of arms and legs as well as the one regulating the respiratory system is affected, which can result in the person getting paralyzed or even dying, according to Çağlar.

"In such accidents, the cervical [neck] spinal cord, our most precious organ, gets sheared by the crashed backbone due to the fracture or can lose its functioning capability due to compression. A wrongly conducted first aid in spinal cord accidents does not only increase the damage on the victims but only can lead to their deaths," Çağlar said. 

Diving headfirst is the fourth leading cause of spinal cord injuries, and the average age of those getting injured is between 20 and 29, with most of them being males.

As a result of warning signs placed on seashores in the U.S. and Australia, accidents caused by diving headfirst decreased by some 70 percent. "Although 28 provinces in Turkey have a...